#rereading!

Costa chooses to frame Rodimus/Hot Rod’s recovery and return of the Matrix through pseudo-Biblical dialogue and, while I’m not one-hundred percent on board, I think it’s an interesting move and a very purposeful attempt to indicate the tone and historical/religious significance of the moment within the story. I will say I found it a bit jarring, as up until now I hadn’t considered Costa’s run to be particularly interested in expanding on the spiritual elements of the canon and there’s little context for what is an orthodox or heterodox perspective among the characters… But I can still respect the choice. However, I did start to feel that it was dragging a bit and I do question its placement in the issue, as I feel it might have benefitted form being an opening/closing moment in order to reinforce its significance. Helping it along its way were some significant improvements in the art and colours, with the ‘lighting’ in particular doing a lot of heavy-lifting and doing its level best to match the tone set by the narration. (Customary minor nitpick is that there’s a spelling error, ‘council’ should be ‘counsel’, but that’s more of a task for the editor.)

This issue also starts to kick of a few other interesting things. For a start, the Autobots actually have a discussion about energon, which is an element of the story I’ve been wondering (complaining) about in recent issues. Optimus’ slightly lame claim to Bumblebee, ‘You’re not being usurped’ is also quite funny. Furthermore, Prowl is actively investigating Spike and that whole saga is about to kick off. The issue for me, however, is that I find the way that Costa writes Prowl rather jarring. His take is a noir-influenced Prowl, so there’s a lot of short, snappy dialogue. He also keeps referring to Bumblebee as ‘The Bee’. He does this to precisely zero other characters…

Issue 22 heralds the arrival of James Roberts, Alex Milne, and Joana Lafuente and immediately kicks into a very different gear to the Costa run. Essentially, I think Roberts was trying to speed-run the things he wished had been in Megatron: Origin. The comic is about as wordy as it is under Costa’s pen, but there’s a very different atmosphere - an immediate jump to more comedy and more character drama, with the key moments coming between Optimus and Megatron. The decision to have everyone try and eavesdrop or spy on the conversation between Optimus and Megatron is funny, and I appreciate the degree of specificity that Roberts puts into their dynamic. The comic puts together some interesting quotes during this scene, from Optimus’ ‘Hate is too simple a word’ to Megatron’s snide ‘how tiring it must be’ when discussing Optimus’ moral positioning. I think it’s nicely done how their conversation shifts into something convivial, even if the comic has to do it in a pretty speedy fashion.

I also like some of the gestures that are being made here, for example the increased sense of what the Matrix actually does, the idea that it can communicate and give advice, as up until now it’s essentially been treated as an inanimate object. Similarly, Megatron’s line about ‘the pace of our war is picking up speed. I remember when whole centuries would pass without a single shot… when both sides would spend millennia preparing for battles that would be over by nightfall’ has such interesting implications and can help with conceiving of the scale of the war. My one point of bemusement is Megatron’s casual mention of post-war repopulation, as… is this a sign of his lack of sincerity, as he’s claiming a future he has no idea of how to provide? Complacency, the idea that something so high-stakes can be worked out along the way? Or is it something else? Just something I’m interested in thinking over more, especially as I think later comics gesture in a specific direction. It’s striking how many aspects that will appear in Roberts’ later works are already being laid out here: Megatron’s new backstory, especially his work as a philosopher/poet/polemicist, Rung, an increased focus on sparks, the separation between constructed cold and forged characters, the level of imagination applied to technology, the Knights of Cybertron, Tyrest and the suggestion that something is up with him.

There are some other details I’m very fond of, too, for example making Wheelarch religious, as I feel this adds a really curious element to his dynamic with Optimus, especially if you think of the implications for how his demise might affect him: ‘When I feel disquieted, I try to channel the wisdom of the Matrix. It helps me find peace’. On a closely related note, Optimus’ troubled relationship with the Matrix, contrasted with Wheelarch’s view of it, and Rodimus’ description of bonding with it, ‘It felt wonderful! I don’t know if I can describe…’, gives that character in a really interesting perspective.

Hearts of Steel had some interesting places to go and an attention-grabbing concept - Transformers in the age of steam. However, I don’t think the art always used that concept to its advantage and a lot of the designs ended up being quite generic. This was not helped by the fact that a number of the characters were made monotone, with grey being a very prevalent colour. Overall, the art, though not bad, seemed something of an afterthought, which was odd for a miniseries like this. The initial concept art for the series came from Ted McKeever, but three out of four issues were by Guido Guidi, and one of the issues was done by Antonio Vasquez and Luis Czerniawski - so perhaps this was a product of the concept being passed around a fair bit, for example some characters’ designs and colours change substantially between issues.

As for the time period, it’s not meant to be a realistic take and that might be for the best - Mark Twain and Jules Verne are palling around, John Henry shows up, etc. I’m not very knowledgeable about this period of American history, but I think this is going for more of a lighthearted, folkloric tone. I quite liked the book initially, as it seemed simple, but as if it was heading somewhere quickly. That impression soon started to wear off - the characters were flat and one-note and dialogue was blunt. A lot of the characters didn’t have much to do, including both Transformer characters and human characters, Bonaventure and Vanflet being good examples of this.

The pacing also seemed odd to me, as it made the whole mini-series seem like a non-event. I was reading a digital copy and hadn’t realised the comic was ending until I clicked onto the next page and there were the closing panels. There was very little build-up,and therefore I think the climax of the story slipped past me without my even realising that it was supposed to be the highpoint. 

I was unsure what to expect going in. On the one hand, I’ve seen lots of interesting panels from this comic floating around, but on the other hand I don’t have the highest opinion of a lot of the IDW1 crossover things and I didn’t have any prior knowledge of ROM. I’m happy to say I didn’t need a lot of prior knowledge and there were some very concise notes at the front laying down the basics. Honestly, I think perhaps ROM was an easier combination with the Transformers canon, given that it seems to have its own space opera and SFF aspects.

I immediately latched on to Stardrive like a gosling onto its mother. I may also be about to go down a rabbit hole of over-interpreting minor details, but here I go. Stardrive raises some interesting ideas about Cybertronian ageing. The IDW1 continuity doesn’t really account for a subadult period of life. There are ‘newer’ characters and periods of training and education, but not really a fundamental and distinct phase of life that would be equivalent to childhood or adolescence. Stardrive, surrounded by mostly organic species, is shown experiencing a childhood and is interpreted as young by multiple characters from multiple different species: she went to school, someone must have found her that purple cuddly toy, and characters like Rom, who tries to soften criticism directed her way, and the Dire Wraith, who claims she screams ‘like a child’, do not interpret her as a full adult. Admittedly, there’s multiple ways to interpret this in the story itself. It could all be down to socialisation, or, alternatively, it could suggest that there is a period of Cybertronian life (even if it’s relatively short…) that is subadult or somewhat ‘childlike’ and they just don’t mark it? That or the writers just wanted to make Stardrive seem cuter or more innocent, which… goal achieved, I suppose. It’s a shame we didn’t see more of this character, especially with that ending and the question of how, should she survive, these experiences might alter Stardrive given that she seems quite young and soft - not a pushover, but quite a soft person.

I still know nothing about ROM, but I have to say I was not expecting the Solstar Order to be as planet-destruction-happy as they turned out to be. I have to wonder how no one in the Order is questioning Livia a bit more considering… well, everything she says and does? I mean, she can barely hold back her contempt for her peers, let alone everyone else. I enjoyed the multi-sided conflict and it gave the story a nice sense of scale, though I am starting to wonder about the Galactic Council and their hatred of Cybertronians, which seems to be their only defining feature - I don’t know whether I find that a bit wearing or quite funny.

A lot of the images I’ve seen from this comic have been of Starscream and for good reason. If you like IDW1 Starscream, especially if you are interested in a more upbeat take on the character, this is well worth a look. There’s also an interesting sense of camaraderie among the Decepticon characters - some of their interactions are informal, there are nicknames, there are jokes, Astrotrain and Blitzwing are grudging friends, Starscream gets a bit territorial, etc. Also bringing villainous energy, there is ROM’s contribution in the form of Vekktral, who is just delightfully enthusiastic about his combination of magic and technology.

This book mostly escapes continuity traps, but the one thing that does come up is Ultra Magnus - specifically, this is NOT Minimus but someone called Convoy, despite being seemingly close to the modern era. Ultra Magnus’ characterisation is very, very deliberate - it’s even a joke at one point, where Bumblebee talks about how ‘Magnus reacted with a level head, as always’, immediately followed by a scream of ‘Annihilate them!’. Similarly, ‘They’re organics! They barely count as life, anyway’ is certainly a sentiment. It was actually quite entertaining to see evidence of such a wildly different version and a further exploration of the concept of Magnus-as-role rather than individual, however it does have the side effect of suggesting Minimus was not in the job for that long.

This book seems a bit more focused than some previous Spotlights, quickly setting up the idea of Hot Rod/Rodimus as a risk-taker but also, usefully, the complicated relationship he has with guilt and responsibility. Specifically, the part where he says he likes solo missions because then ‘my life - and my life alone - [is] on the line’ is interesting. Although this book was written well before Autocracy and does not work perfectly with it, I think this Spotlight still draws on a lot of the themes that would go on to be picked up by later books.

The Magnificence is mentioned here but never really used. Overall, though, I quite liked a lot of the execution. I liked the parallel stories, I think Nick Roche’s art and grasp of facial expressions helps an awful lot and possibly compensates for some of the thinner spots in the writing - Dealer’s face when he looks at Hot Rod while they escape the planet is a good example of this. 

Regarding Dealer/Doubledealer, I quite like plot-line and its implied future consequences for Hot Rod, as he learns of and responds to the betrayal. However I almost preferred the story when there was an element of potential blame (even accidental) for Rodimus in the Ki-Aleta mission. Nevertheless, Dealer walked so that Getaway could run, and I liked the ending and the decision to cut it off where it was instead of rushing things in order to fit in some kind of resolution or confrontation. Leaving this Spotlight more open-ended seems like a good move.

I came into this having read Megatron: Origin during a past attempt a full read-through, the one that was felled by the Costa run and the looming menace of Heart of Darkness. I remembered this book quite fondly as, following all the Furman stuff, I think I appreciated something a little longer and more decisive in its characterisation.

I can see why I remembered it fondly - it’s a fairly quick and brutal introduction to one of the franchise’s major characters, not prone to the subtlest characterisation, but at least it’s there. It’s much more sparsely written than the later stuff from IDW1, but that makes sense, considering this comic goes about a mile a minute. Seriously, my big issues with this mini-series are the art (dark and sometimes confusing) and the pacing (so, so fast). I suspect some of my issues with the art are made worse by the pacing and probably vice versa. I had to rely on the wiki to help me work out what was going on in some of the gladiator scenes.

If our Lord and Saviour TFwiki is to be believed, this was originally intended to be 6 issues long, then was shortened to 4, plus was punted over from Dreamwave to IDW, which might explain why the pacing and breaking up of the issues sometimes feels a bit odd. Similarly, there was once going to be a mentor character (à la Terminus, supposedly), which could have been useful in smoothing Megatron’s character development over, but alas, the cruel hands of editing.

The comic plays very deliberately on your expectations for characters (Starscream’s probably the most obvious example), so that’s an interesting feature, but it could probably have done with those few more issues or even being a more extended mini-series. That, or it needed a laser-focus on Megatron’s perspective in order to give it a natural limit within which to work. The big, glaring elephant in the room here is the jump from Megatron as frustrated Miner who accidentally kills a Senator’s guard to hesitant gladiator to insurgency leader who kills unrepentantly and is openly motivated by a desire for revenge. Those… are some pretty big leaps in character, but most of the transition between them takes place off-panel, which is a pity, because I like what the author does overall.

On the other hand, I appreciated the way the Decepticon cause is introduced here, specifically in that it is shaped by its early leadership - not just Megatron, but Soundwave, and Starscream, too. I also like Sentinel’s set up here, where he has that ‘when all you’ve got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail’ mindset - he literally compares his security forces to a hammer at one point. Although the series leans quite hard on edge it still sets up some important parts of the continuity going forward, such as the attention paid to Megatron’s perspective and the idea of functionism, with the Senator Decimus’ comments about all having their role or being a cog in a larger machine.

 A long-standing bugbear of mine, however: how do they have ‘Houses’? As in the House of Decimus, which is referred to here, but later series do the same, like Minimus talking about him and Dominus being part of the ‘House of Ambus’. I mean, Minimus and Dominus are brothers, but how else do you have ‘Houses’ when there is no generational aspect, unless there is some kind of adult adoption or vassal position? Ah, it just always drove me up the wall.

Oh, I did not remember disliking this comic, but here we are. I like the cover(s) and I like the general outline you could give of the plot. It would be a fairly simple A to B story, but there’s nothing wrong with that, especially for something as focused as a Spotlight issue. However, I just really cannot get on board with the execution here.

The other things I liked were the idea of simultronic, even though it’s not really explored, just because I find the frequent references to addictive behaviours in Cybertronians interesting. I also like that it reframes Blurr’s (later) desire to have a bar, and I enjoyed the bit of parallel narration towards the end, where McCarthy showed the similarities between what Blurr really liked about racing and his newfound sense of purpose going to help save Zeta Prime.

Probably the thing that bothered me the most was how unsubtle this comic was. Starscream and Optimus Prime are hit particularly hard here, as they have no interiority and seem to speak mostly in manifestos - it makes sense from a writer’s perspective, because for this story it’s clear that he wants to use each character as an embodiment of their faction and its values, but I think there was a better way to do that than just have both characters start spouting interpretations of their sides’ respective ethos. For me, it just came across as jarring. Probably the prize for the weirdest line in context goes to this, from Optimus Prime:

‘How long has it been since Cybertron has witnessed death? Death to those who haven’t chosen it.’ 

Ah yes, pre-war Cybertron, bloodless utopia where nothing bad ever happened. I don’t know, it just struck me as oddly phrased and it doesn’t even work with what he says later in the same speech. Piston’s death also didn’t move me much, nor did Blurr’s reaction to it. Pacing might not have helped there, as things were starting to get bunched up into the last five or so pages of the issue.

I don’t love the art, either. While it’s pretty in a way, a lot of what are apparently supposed to be crowd shots are quite empty, but they only call attention to that later, so it’s a little unclear whether that’s foreshadowing or the artist just wasn’t up for drawing a crowd in earlier panels. Similarly, a lot of the settings are sterile, clean, and cold even during action scenes - lots of blank grey walls - and the character’s expressions are quite similar. Again, the art is nice, but I’m not sure it helps the tone of the story.

I still like Blurr, though.

‘Nobody’s forgotten about the Decepticons… but with most of them badly injured and Megatron gone, they aren’t our first priority.’

This is Bumblebee’s line, but unfortunately it reflects the general approach that was taken for the majority of this comic’s run, so…

In earnest, the whole ‘Police Action’ storyline is very much centred on the Autobots and their internal issues, in particular the dynamic between Prowl and Spike Witwicky. I’m not a huge fan of the way Costa tends to characterise Prowl, with a lot of focus on him being a mild spoof of hard-boiled detective characters. However, the hard-boiled-lite writing actually worked better here, I believe, because Prowl is actually given something to investigate - Spike, and whatever shady stuff he is up to. This makes the characterisation feel a bit more appropriate and lends the narrative some much-needed momentum, especially with the way the comic jumps back and forth between this story-line and the ‘Chaos Theory’ story-line.

My chief complaint for the way the Prowl-Spike relationship is handled is that things seemed inconsistent to me. For example, in issues #25 and #27, Prowl seems very attached to Spike, when I could swear he was a bit skeptical about him in relatively recent issues. Meanwhile, from the opposite direction, Spike complains about Prowl’s plotting, but I’m not terribly conscious of him doing much other than standard investigations in this run - certainly not the kind of conspiratorial, underhanded sort of thing that Spike is implying. I could argue that Spike is misinterpreting or misrepresenting, but I also wonder whether this was driven by Costa’s awareness of Prowl’s characterisation in other series, like Last Stand of the Wreckers?

Costa opts to do something pretty interesting with Spike at this point in the series. Specifically, in Issue 27 the comic uses one of the female characters, Sandra, as a critical voice: she points out that Spike acts like an action movie hero and the ways that this generates problems for him and everyone around him. Now, I think this is actually an interesting gesture, pointing out the flaws in Spike’s character, as that’s something I’ve quibbled with in previous issues. However, this comes in Issue 27 out of a 31 issues series, and the series has to devote most of its time to more plot-relevant events than character development or exploration at this point. I don’t mind the idea of Spike as a protagonist who has a lot of selfish or self-destructive traits or who might represent a particular idea of toxic masculinity (mid-2000s, American action hero/bad-boy edition ™), however I do think that leaving it until this late into the series to start addressing makes it come across as a bit of a feeble gesture. I think virtually every reader realised that Spike was not being written as a very good person within a few panels of seeing him, but the comic seemed to ask readers to accept him at face value for, only to make a single gesture towards deconstructing the character at the last moment.